Women Today - October 2015

Women Today Christina

A Special Supplement to

THE DAILY IOWEGIAN

Laurson

October 2015

Toni Surb e

Judy Dorman

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Janet Stevens Debbie McConville

a Stacy Thom

Lori Bogle

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Courtney H Mary Wells

awkins

Page 2 • Women Today • October 23, 2015

Helping care for parents leads to new career and focus on health

By Krystal Fowler Lifestyle Editor

Stacy Thomas is a nurse, but she only decided to pursue the career in 2011 after two decades of working in a completely different field. And a completely new career wasn’t the only major change that came into her life in the last five years.

She has also became very involved in fitness and nutrition and recently became a coach for the fitness and nutrition program, Beach Body.

Stacy and her husband Dean, who owns Deano’s Complete Automotive Service and Repair, have three adult children.

The oldest, Jami, is a nurse at the University of Southern California at Long Beach. She lives in Seal Beach, California. Their second daughter, Kari, and her husband Chris Rouse, currently live in Tucson, Arizona. Chris is in the Air Force. They also have an 11 month old son. Their son, Seth, is living in Tennessee, where he is a home builder.

“Our kids are a huge part of our life,” said Thomas. “We travel a lot. Probably once a month, we’re either traveling there, or they’re traveling to us.”

Stacy currently works as a nurse at Mercy Medical Center, but the career was a late in life change after managing Aldi for 20 years. She grew up on a farm south of Seymour and her mother was a nurse. But Thomas never saw herself becoming a nurse.

“I just was really tired of those 70, 80 hour weeks,” said Thomas. “I did not miss a ball game of my kids. I didn’t get hardly any sleep.

I was just run ragged all the time.”

In 2010 though, her life changed.

“I was off and helped take care of my dad during his end of life care and I was like, ‘Wow, there’s life outside of this crazy, crazy schedule,’” said Thomas. “I went back to work for the holiday season…and I was like, ‘I don’t know how I do this. I can’t do this anymore.’

Then I was off in February, my mom had hip surgery so I helped take care of her and I was like, ‘You know, I kind of like nursing.’”

So Thomas left her job at Aldi in June of 2011 and immediately entered nursing training. She went straight through LPN and RN training at Indian Hills Community College in Centerville and then got her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Iowa, finishing last year.

The changes to a career in nursing has really been a positive in her life.

“What really draws me to nursing and why I love it so much, is…the really cool part about nursing that I did not anticipate, is the relationships that you build with the other nurses,” said Thomas. “Nursing [has] much more a family feeling with the people I work with.”

Besides the massive career change, she has also made major changes in her personal health choices over the last several years. She has even become a coach with Beach Body.

“The fitness and health stuff is just kind of an extension of the nursing,” said Thomas.

After their third child, Seth, graduated from high school in 2009, she and Dean decided to start getting healthier because they had both put on weight and were starting to see cholesterol and blood pressure problems.

“We just started walking, a lot, and eating a lot of tilapia and broccoli,” said Thomas. “We lost quite a bit of weight…but I really wouldn’t say that we got stronger. We got skinnier, but I tended to look kind of gaunt.”

Dean was doing some Beach Body exercises, but Stacy wasn’t really involved in it. After their daughter, Kari, had her baby, she started doing Beach Body on her own and got really involved in it. Stacy joined in to support her daughter and loved the program.

“It’s not really a weight loss company,” said Thomas. “I mean people lose weight automatically when they start eating healthier, but Beach Body really is about health and fitness.”

Beach Body focuses on all aspects of a healthy life, and includes food and nutrition guides, teaches portion control and also includes fitness programs.

“Beach Body…they’ve got all kinds of fitness programs you can do in your home for 30 minutes,” said Thomas. “And they’re so well

organized that if you follow the program from start to finish you’re strengthening all of your muscles, all of your bones, your heart, your lungs. It’s just incredible what it can do for you. And it really starts to shape your body.

You know when you lose weight, you kind of end up looking really thin and not muscular.

And the Beach Body programs provide that plus they provide just incredible, incredible nutrition.”

Thomas also runs a Beach Body challenge group on Facebook. It is a place for women that she is coaching to come and exchange messages and encouragement.

“You know, people decide that they want to make healthier decisions…but when you’re on your own it’s hard to stay accountable,” said Thomas. “You know, it takes 30 to 60 days to start seeing some results, so during that 30 or 60 days they’re involved with a group of other women who are also starting and we all post.”

Outside of her family, nursing and Beach Body, Stacy’s other great loves are gardening and being outside.

“I really am most happy when I’m outside,” said Thomas. “In fact lots of times I take my workouts outside and do them on the deck.”

Beyond that, she and Dean have also started participating in RAGBRAI. They have done the state-wide bike race the past two years and

Stacy Thomas at her home. She often likes to do her workouts outside on the deck.

continue to focus on staying healthy.

“People that I take care of that are my age and just a little bit older, and they are experiencing very serious health problems… because of the choices that they’re making,” said Thomas. “So if we can help to head some of that off, that would be great.”

October 23, 2015 • Women Today • Page 3

Woman's work a labor of love

By Michael Schaffer Managing Editor

The work one Centerville woman today does is a labor of love.

Debbie McConville works seven days a week, sometimes putting in up to 75 hours in a week at Joe's Quick Shop, a Centerville institution.

"This is my life here," she said while laughing at the thought she belongs to the Joe's Quick Shop institution. "It's very time consuming."

McConville is no stranger at Joe’s. She and her brother, Michael Cardani, are co-owners.

Their parents, Joe and Shirley Cardani, opened the store in 1963 as Quick Shop Superette in a completely different location.

McConville has been working in the store since her days in junior high school, for a good 45 years out of her life.

When her mom and dad were alive her work schedule wasn't so demanding. The three of them each had work responsibilities at Joe's.

"Mom had certain jobs. I had certain jobs,” McConville said. "And my dad kind of did his own thing.

"And since they are not here anymore, it's made the load pretty big for me."

Both Joe and Shirley passed away in 2012, just short of the 50th anniversary of the business.

Some days McConville is up at 1 a.m. doing bookwork. Then it's on to the store by 5 or 6 a.m. where she will remain helping with deliveries and other duties well past 1 or 2 p.m.

Thursday is supposed to be McConville's day off, but she does bookwork and spends time at the store. She said a huge amount of bookwork is needed to run the store.

But don't underestimate her devotion to her work, her employees and her customers. She said she loves her employees and customers, who are more like an extended family to her.

"More like an another extended family, a lot of the people are, that come in here," McConville said.

Joe's customers are generational, McConville said, where a lot of people as kids came to Joe's and now their children come to Joe's.

McConville said her parents taught her everything she knows about the business. She said her dad was a really good business man.

"He knew what he was doing. Very smart," McConville said. "And I still to this day do

things the way that my dad did them. The way my dad showed me how to do them."

That includes focusing on customer service.

According to Joe, the only thing that would set their business apart from anyone else’s, was the feeling they gave to their customers. It was important to Joe to treat all his customers the same. McConville continues that tradition.

One thing McConville doesn't like about her time-consuming work schedule is the fact she doesn't have any time for herself, she doesn't have a life outside of the store. She said she would like to find time to have a little fun.

"And that's the only drawback, is that it's very difficult to get away," McConville said.

"And if I do decide to take a few days off, when I come back home I have tons of stuff to get caught up."

McConville said if the right person came along she would think about delegating some of her work load to that person. However, that person would need to have a nose for business.

"And to do the bookwork you have to kind of know the business," McConville said. "And it would be very difficult for someone to just come in who doesn't know ... you know, what goes on behind the counter."

So for now, McConville continues her long

Debbie McConville behind the counter at Joe's Quick Shop in Centerville.

work weeks at Joe’s, but it’s something she wants to do, to keep her family’s business legacy alive.

McConville has two daughters, Becky, of Centerville and Sarah, of Albia. She has three grandchildren: Zoe, Cody and Emma.

Centerville Specialty Care staff We appreciate all you do, your hard work and your dedication to providing quality care.

Thank you for being you!

1208 East Cross Street | 641.856.8651 | careinitiatives.org

Page 4 • Women Today • October 23, 2015

Local woman today comes home

By Michael Schaffer Managing Editor

Christina Laurson, Centerville-Rathbun Lake Area Chamber of Commerce office manager, Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 20, said she has found perhaps the best job she has ever had right here in her hometown.

And she has had a few.

Laurson, 38, was born in Benton, Arkansas. However, at the age of 12, in 1989, her dad took a job as the youth minister at Grace Tabernacle so it was off to Centerville.

She said she wasn't traumatized by the move but looked at it as an adventure.

"I was excited," she said. "All of my family is in Arkansas but it was just something new.

I was kind of excited."

In 1993, at the age of 16, Laurson entered the workforce in Centerville. And for the next 22 years she would go on to work at eight different jobs for seven different companies in four different cities.

In 1993 Laurson went to work for Walmart in Centerville as a cashier.

After she married Kris in June of 1998 they moved to Kirksville, Missouri, where she found a job as customer service manager with the Walmart in that community. She kept that job for about a year.

While still living in Kirksville, Laurson went to work for Bank Mid West for a few years and then with International Eye Care.

Next, it was on to Cedar Rapids when her husband found a job in that community.

Laurson found employment with John Deere Community Credit Union.

Then it was on to Ottumwa where Kris took a job and she found work with Pediatrics Associates.

Last, but not least, it was a return home to Centerville where Laurson first found work with Mercy Medical Clinic and then on Feb. 23, 2015 she was hired by Joyce Bieber to be the Chamber office manager.

Bieber left the Chamber on July 1, which made this year's Pancake Day Laurson's first in two ways: First, it was her first Pancake Day as Chamber office manager and second, it would be her first Pancake Day without a Chamber director.

"It was my first Pancake Day at the Chamber and we had no director," Laurson said.

Despite the lack of a director, Laurson said her first Pancake Day went well. She credited the hard work of the Pancake Day Committee, Chamber Board and Chamber President Robert Houf.

Laurson said as office manager she does the billing, answers the phone, greets visitors,

payroll, other dayto-day activities and helps out with Pancake Day and other activity events.

Laurson said she likes being able to help in a community as Chamber office manager.

That's something she hasn't done much of.

"So I really enjoy being able to help Christina Laurson, Centerville-Rathbun Lake Area Chamber of our community and Commerce office manager, sits at her desk Tuesday afternoon help it grow," Laurat the Chamber office. son said. "And just Laurson called her job as Chamber office bring attention to the community so people know kind of what's going on and what's manager one of the best jobs she has had next there to do. Yeah, I really enjoy that. I've to the job she had in Ottumwa.

Centerville may be the smallest town never done that before."

Laurson said there was nothing she could Laurson has lived in but she considers it to be think of that she doesn't like about her Cham- her hometown.

"Our parents were here and so we wanted ber job. Except?

"I mean right now it would be nice if we to come back, especially since we have a son," had a director," Laurson said. "But no, I'm Laurson said. "We wanted to come back and really enjoying what I'm doing and I get to let him grow up where we grew up. I would meet a lot of different people and do a lot of say this is my home."

Laurson and her husband Kris have a 8things I wouldn't have thought I would be year-old son named Alex. able to help them do it."

October 23, 2015 • Women Today • Page 5

Stevens surpasses two decades of coaching basketball

By Michael Schaffer Managing Editor

Janet Stevens can be easy to find. The Moulton-Udell graduate has spent a lot of time with the Centerville School District and has a tenured career not only as part of the school staff but in coaching and officiating.

Currently, Stevens is a study hall supervisor at Howar Junior High School. Though outside of that she has spent many years coaching and officiating many different sports throughout the junior high and high school levels.

After 20 years, Stevens stopped coaching junior high basketball. But, this coming season, she will resume that career, meaning she’s about to spend her 21st year at the helm of the program.

She is the junior high’s track coach and also currently coaches the still-new junior high softball program, which will begin it’s third season next summer.

Stevens has been a long-time official of high school sports, most notably 10 years as a softball official and several years as a volleyball official.

Prior to her current duties, Stevens was also the high school softball coach at one point, running the program for a dozen years.

Stevens was coaching when Iowa switched girls’ basketball from six-on-six to the current five-on-five structure, a change that was made for the 1992-93 season. A quick look through the assorted team photos arranged on the cafeteria wall (where the study halls she supervises are located) reminded her of the first year of the transition to five-on-five basketball.

“My daughter is in the ’92-’93 class, so that’s the year we went five-on-five,” Stevens said. “Because she would have started for me six-on-six and she hardly got to play [with the change to five-on-five]. She couldn’t shoot, at all. But she’d been coming to practice since like, third grade, with all these kids and she could play defense, she just couldn’t

shoot.”

Iowa was one of the final states to eliminate six-on-six basketball. It was a popular form of basketball, but ultimately phased out after lawsuits were filed in Iowa stating that the rules of six-on-six basketball put girls at a disadvantage in gaining scholarships to play the conventional five-on-five basketball in college. Other lawsuits claimed it was discriminatory because girls wouldn’t receive coaching in all aspects of the game.

Nonetheless, it was a popular form of basketball back in the day.

“You’d go to the state tournaments [and] you couldn’t get tickets,” Stevens said.

While the days of six-on-six are long gone, more than likely to never return, Stevens still introduces it to the kids of her junior high team once in a while.

“I loved it, and I still play it occasionally at practice,” Stevens said. “And I have found that it will help these kids, sometimes, especially you know — they get the ball and the second they touch the ball, they want to dribble.”

Once basketball season is over, Stevens will embark on her 17th year of coaching girls’ track and field at Howar Junior High.

Then, she’ll spend her third year in the dugout for junior high softball at the end of the school year.

The sport was added two years ago to help bridge the gap between youth leagues and high school baseball and softball. Though most of the trouble in that area affected local baseball athletes through the absence of a Babe Ruth program, Stevens says the junior high softball and baseball programs have been a much needed addition.

“We should have done it years ago,” Stevens said, adding that for the girls in the area, the local Appanoose County Softball Association provides a good opportunity to get additional time in the field and at the plate.

“I encourage them to still play in that league, the more the games they can play — you’re getting bats, you’re getting fielding,

you’re getting something,” Stevens said.

Stevens said she gets around 16-17 girls out for junior high softball. It’s a good number, she thinks, and it provides the developing student-athletes the opportunity to get plenty of playing time — but also a chance to try out the sport.

“A lot of them are out just to try it,” Stevens said. “That’s what junior high is all about. You might think you’re horrible and come in and, ‘I’m pretty good at this, maybe I ought to work a little harder.’”

The new junior high summer sports are crammed into a small time frame, with 15 double headers played in a single month.

Coaching the junior high softball team has cut down a bit on the officiating, but Stevens says she still averages around four nights a week during the season working as a softball umpire. Prior to the addition of softball to Howar Junior High, Stevens would spend mornings and evenings umpiring at various junior high and high school contests.

Stevens has been married to her husband Mike for 36 years. They have two children, Devon and Heath. After graduating from Moulton-Udell in 1977, Stevens went on to Indian Hills Community College and then to Buena Vista to obtain her elementary education degree.

Photo by Julie Clark

Moulton-Udell grad plays many roles in local prep athletics.

Page 6 • Women Today • October 23, 2015

Main Street director hoping to lead a change

By Kyle Ocker Daily Iowegian

Eight months of her first year are complete as the local Main Street director, and Mary Wells’ work is just beginning.

The application process to become a Main Street community, is a tiresome process. But this year Centerville, with the help of Wells and other volunteers, helped secure that designation.

The Main Street Iowa Program is run by Iowa Economic Development, and is aimed at improving the social and economic wellbeing of Iowa’s downtown districts. In Centerville’s case, it’s the square and the immediate area surrounding it — from Haynes Avenue to 10th Street and from Maple to Washington Streets.

Wells started with the local Main Street group in January 2015.

“Now that we’ve got the Main Street designation, we have all those reporting requirements,” Wells said. “We have to keep track of all of our volunteer hours, anytime there is any maintenance or somebody’s doing any kind of work, whether it’s on the inside or outside of their building, we have to report that to the Main Street community.”

The idea is to improve the downtown district, which will be done through a local board and sub-committees, with Wells as it’s director. The local organization ultimately answers to the Main Street Iowa program.

Wells says “business development, sustainability, walk-ability [and] live-ability” in the downtown district area are the main goals Main Street will focus on.

And as part of that, the Main Street Iowa Program strongly encourages “upper story rehab, so that if you have people living in the downtown, they will spend money in the downtown,” Wells said.

Wells had many reasons to take the director job for the local Main Street group. One of the things she is passionate about is find-

ing a way to get the young people of the community to stay in their hometown.

“One of the reasons I took the Main Street job is because we are bleeding our young people like crazy,” Wells said. “It could really be a neat place. We really need more downtown activity. And our square is a prime location to have more festivals, more evening and nighttime activity.”

Perception is also an issue, Wells said.

This became especially clear after a recent round of surveys produced by Main Street, of which had nearly 300 responses. Wells said a common response was that the downtown district had a large drug problem, amongst other things.

“We need to change perception,” Wells said. “One of the things that shocked me about that survey that they had done, was everybody kept saying we have a drug issue. I don’t get that — I mean all communities, I think, have a drug problem. To me, personally, I guess I don’t see that.”

“People need to start thinking good things about our square, our community, and realizing that all the members in our community have value,” Wells added.

With the new Main Street designation, Centerville played host to the leaders of the Main Street Iowa Program during homecoming week earlier this month, as they begin to transition from an organization fighting to earn the designation to an organization ready to make a big impact in Centerville’s downtown district.

“They gave us a new mission and vision statement, so we’re working on that,” Wells said. “Each committee has new goals and things that we’re going to be working on.

They’ll be back on December 8.

“They gave us these guidelines and we’re supposed to take it and make it more geared towards our community. So they gave us some basic guidelines from our baseline visit and we have to elaborate and add to it and make it specific to each of the

four different committees and the board and then my role on what they want to see us get done.”

Part of the site visit was a downtown-wide cleanup day, which showed positive results in terms of early community involvement.

“I thought when we had the cleanup day, we had about 75 people,” Wells said. “I was pretty impressed that we had so many people show up for that. I thought that was fantastic, because it was during Homecoming and so many other things were going on.

And we got a lot done … we got two dump trucks full.”

Prior to coming on as the Main Street director, Wells held a few jobs in and around the Centerville area.

She’s from Centerville originally, ultimately graduating out of Moravia. She obtained her business degree at William Penn University.

Prior to officially wrapping her degree, she was hired at the Aldi supermarket in Centerville, in sort of a wacky way.

“I got hired, actually, when I was still a college student,” Wells recalled. “I went in with my sister, who wanted to get an application at Aldi. They handed each of us an application, and I didn’t want to fill it out, but I didn’t just want to stand around and wait for her to

Lifelong Centerville native and resident wraps up first year.

fill it out. So, I filled it out and they offered me the job.”

Wells worked there for about a year before heading to Iowa Southern Utilities as a pricing analyst. After that, she opened up her own women’s clothing store called Bobbie’s at the Lake Center Mall, eventually moving it to the square.

Then, after a stint at First Star Bank in Ottumwa she started selling Aflac Insurance for several years until she took the director job at Main Street Centerville.

October 23, 2015 • Women Today • Page 7

Work in real estate was a long time dream for local woman

By Krystal Fowler Lifestyle Editor

Lori Bogle was born near Toledo, Ohio and lived there through eighth grade before her family moved to Cleburne, Texas, where she graduated from high school. Her step-father worked for Rubbermaid and eventually ended up in Centerville in 1988 where Lori also joined them.

“I always feel like we were one of the families that came in because of industry,” said Bogle. “And then stayed here and raised our family.”

After moving here, she met her husband, Rod Bogle. The couple have been married for 23 years and have three children together.

Son Drew is in the military and lives in San Diego, California. Daughter, Elizabeth, lives in Ames and son Zachary, currently lives in Centerville, and works as a barber. The couple also have two grandchildren, Elijah and Amelya.

Bogle’s business, Bogle Realty, is a recent addition to the Centerville landscape, opening in February. She got her real estate license in 2012 and her broker’s license in 2014, but she wishes she had done it 20 years ago.

During that time though, she was busy running two other businesses. Bogle owned a greenhouse in Ottumwa, from about 1995 to 2004 and also owned Flower-Tique from about 2000 until 2011. Although she had always been interested in real estate, it wasn’t until 2012 that she was finally inspired to get her license.

Even though it was a dream of hers to be a real estate agent, she swore when she sold her last business she would never own another one. That did not last though.

“Real estate, I just fell in love with it…so it was a no brainer that I wanted to go out on my own,” said Bogle. “I’ve always loved being in sales and I always wanted to find a job that I could be in sales without having to pay for inventory, and that’s real estate,” said Bogle Since taking the plunge of opening Bogle

Realty though, things have been going very well. Bogle said she usually has about 20-25 listings at any one time and by the end of the year she estimates she will have sold about 35 properties.

She sells properties in mostly Appanoose County communities, including Centerville, Moravia, Rathbun, Exline and more, although she can sell property anywhere in Iowa. She has also been working as a relocation agent for some local businesses, helping new workers coming into the community to get a start here and also does things like competitive market analysis and helping home owners get their houses ready to go on the market.

She is also part of the Rathbun Board of Realtors, and is a multiple listing service, which means she can show any house on the market, even if it is listed with another firm.

She currently also has two full-time agents working for her, Jodie McCoy and Amanda Kirkland.

Bogle said the community has been very supportive of the business.

“I feel like the Centerville community has been really open and supportive of, not only of me starting my business, but I feel like they’re like that with a lot of businesses that start in our town, which is nice,” said Bogle.

Right now she is very focused on getting Bogle Realty on good footing, but in the future she would like to become more involved, especially in Main Street.

“For this first year I am just trying to get off the ground and figure out who Bogle Realty is and what we stand for,” said Bogle.

However right now, she is working to get as much accomplished at the real estate office as possible. She kicked off the spring with more than 30 open houses and she said even as the year is heading into fall and winter she is encouraging people to go ahead and list their properties for sale because selling doesn’t only happen in spring and summer and the market is actually very good right now.

“I like to discourage sellers from saying they’re just going to list in the spring,” said

Bogle. “It’s a great time to still have your home on the market.”

Bogle said she really enjoys working with first-time homebuyers. She said the way she usually meets her clients are they will call to look at one house. After showing it to them, she will usually talk to them about financing and help them get in touch with a lender to get pre-approval for a loan.

Based on their pre-approval and what they are looking for, she will then set up several homes for them to look at and help them narrow down their choices and make an offer.

She said she also likes working to get people into foreclosed homes as well as working with people to help them improve their credit to be able to purchase a home.

“I’m always willing to sit down with any type of buyer to see what we can do for them,” said Bogle. “I think one of the best things about this job sometimes is getting those first time home buyers in their first home, because they’re scared about if they can even start the process and if they can get it.”

Although she is really happy with how things have been going, she is already planning for how to grow the business next year.

“We’ve set some goals for our business and I’m happy to say that we’ve met them

Lori Bogle at the Bogle Realty office in Centerville.

and we’ve got even bigger goals for 2016 and plan to meet them,” said Bogle. “We’ve got a lot of ideas that we want to implement.”

Page 8 • Women Today • October 23, 2015

October 23, 2015 • Women Today • Page 9

After years of long commutes, a job closer to home allows more community involvement

By Krystal Fowler Lifestyle Editor

After a job change gave her more free time, Judy Dorman has been able to become more involved in local activities and even join the Main Street and Historical Society boards.

She and her husband Jon, an adjunct professor of construction technology at Indian Hills Community College, live with their 14year-old daughter Adelyn, on a small farm outside of Exline. They moved there about 12 years ago.

“I grew up in Udell,” said Dorman. “I’m a Navy brat. I was born on a naval base near Chicago and my dad grew up in Ottumwa, so when he retired from the Navy we came back to the area.”

Her father worked at Young Radiator after they returned to the area. She met Jon in high school after his family bought a farm in the area when his father retired from Maytag.

“Then we moved to Des Moines for about 10 years and then we moved back here when Ady was just little,” said Dorman. “We wanted Ady to know her grandparents.”

Dorman currently works at the Griffing and George Law Firm for about a year. Before that she had several other jobs, but the longest one was with Cargill, out of their Eddyville facility. She was a paralegal for the company for nine years, in charge of intellectual property.

“I did contracts and patent work,” said Dorman. “I have a paralegal degree and when I was at Cargill I got my business degree, my bachelor’s degree in business.”

Dorman received her paralegal degree from DMACC after leaving high school and earned her business degree from William Penn University.

During her nine years at Cargill, although she mostly worked out of the Eddyville facility, she did work out of the Ottumwa facility for one year where she managed their workman’s compensation claims.

There was also a two year period where she worked one week a month out of their

Minneapolis office. She helped to manage their intellectual property as well. For two years she traveled to the twin cities each month, which kept her away from home even more then her normal daily travel to Eddyville.

While at Cargill Dorman also worked on the waste management team. The team helped to manage and find better ways to eliminate waste so it didn’t go to a land fill.

“I managed that team on site until I left and one of the things…that I did…was I actually got my license to be a compost facility operator, so I still have that,” said Dorman. “I think I’ld probably have to go to a class or two to renew it…but I really enjoyed that side of the work.”

Eventually her position was eliminated at Cargill.

Now at Griffing and George Law Firm she works for attorney Deborah George. She does use her paralegal degree and also runs the office. Her new job is much closer to home which has allowed her to become more involved in the community.

“Because I worked outside of the community for so long…it really was hard to form some of the relationships you need to be successful,” said Dorman. “That’s a big challenge. Especially in a small community where everybody knows everybody.”

She has given so much more time to the community since her job change, she has been able to become more involved. She is a member of the Main Street Board and also recently joined the Historical Society Board, where her husband Jon is also a member.

“I really like that [Main Street] board and what we’re doing for the community, even though I’m not a Centervillian,” said Dorman. “It’s got a lot of great potential to help us..there are some fantastic ways we can utilize that and the tool kit they provide to us.

We’re really excited about what we’ve got coming up.”

She also really enjoys working with the Historical Society, where she volunteers at the Historical and Coal Mining Museum on some Saturdays and is also involved in their

Judy Dorman outside the Griffing and George Law Office, where she currently works as a paralegal.

other projects.

Beyond that, she and Jon also became licensed foster parents at the beginning of October. They have not had a child placed with them yet, but one could come at any time. They were inspired by an extended family situation where they thought they might be asked to step in and help, but that didn’t happen. However, once they started the process of becoming licensed, they saw a real need and decided to go for it. It was an intensive process that included classes, home visits, doctor visits and more.

“The classes…don’t really go over the foster program,” said Dorman. “They go over how to deal with kids that are going through loss, cause that’s really what it is…It’s the loss of their parents, the loss of their homes, the loss of their school…”

Dorman said that although she and her

husband entered the process only wanting to take in the specific child they knew, that changed once they saw the need in the community.

“We had come into the classes going, we are doing this for this one situation…well we got part way into the classes and we decided that we couldn’t look at it that way anymore,” said Dorman. “There’s just too much of a need. There’s some fantastic people in this community that do it. I couldn’t even begin to understand how people have done this for years and years and years and I’ve kind of been completely on the periphery and never really understood it.”

Now though, they are ready to welcome a foster child into their home and excited to begin this new chapter in their lives.

“We’re just…waiting for the phone call,” said Dorman.

Page 10 • Women Today • October 23, 2015

Mystic woman epitomizes working women today

By Michael Schaffer Managing Editor

She works 32-40 hours per week at her Centerville job; she works up to 20 hours per week at her job as an in-home health care aide; she has two children under the age of 5; she belongs to two organizations where she gives of her time as needed; and she is a member of the Mystic City Council.

Who is this Appanoose County woman today?

You know her as Mystic resident 38year-old Toni Elaine Surber.

Surber has two children, son Calvin, age 3, who is in Headstart and daughter Scarlett, age 4, who is involved in dance and husband Roger since 2002, who works at Iowa Steel and Wire as a panel welder operator.

Her work for the state's Medicaid program has her going to two homes in Appanoose County. One client she assists is a disabled woman and the other is an elderly woman.

She spends 10 hours per client each week and assists with house cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking, making appointments and other client requests as long as they do not jeopardize her safety.

Surber's work at J&K Market in Centerville started at the age of 18. She took a couple of years off to have her children and be at home for their first few years.

"And through that time I went and tried other jobs out but I ended up coming back to J&K," Surber said. "It's become sort of like a second family to me."

Surber said Kris Koestner has been "a wonderful boss over the years."

Surber said her main duties at J&K include cashier, stocking coolers, unloading trucks, cleaning shelves, cooking food and whatever else her boss requires.

"It's a pretty small store and so we have limited numbers of people working here so everyone kind of just chips in and does what they need to do when they need to do it," Surber said. "And that's true with all of the employees here."

Surber said working at J&K provides her with the extra income to do some things she may not be able to do otherwise, like provide dance for her daughter and Head Start for her son.

Surber is serving her first term on the Mystic City Council. She was appointed this year to fill a resignation.

"I mostly wanted to be on the city council because with having children now I was

worried with this being such a small town that it would just go by the wayside," Surber said. "And it was such a wonderful town growing up in."

Surber said she has filed papers to run for the seat in the upcoming city elections this November.

Surber said Mystic has a "large-family feel" and that's something she doesn't want her own children to not experience.

"It's just a very family kind of feel to it," Surber said of Mystic. "And I don't want my kids to not have that. So, that was my primary goal in joining the city council was just to keep Mystic alive. If I could do that.

At least I could help to do that."

Surber belongs to the Mystic Legion Auxiliary and Mystic Highland Cemetery Association, where she gives of her time as they need her too. Surber called it like being on call.

Surber said society is better off with women in the workplace because they bring new ways and new thoughts to the job.

"Which I think will help companies grow and I think that companies have learned the value of women being in the workplace," Surber said.

Toni Surber, rings up sales at a cash register in J&K Market Tuesday morning, Oct. 13.

Surber has worked on and off at J&K since the age of 18.

October 23, 2015 • Women Today • Page 11

Hawkins in 2nd year of return to CHS didn’t always envision teaching career

By Kyle Ocker Daily Iowegian

It’s been a few years now, but once Courtney Hawkins changed her major from business to elementary education, she hasn’t looked back.

After graduating from Centerville High School, the Centerville-native went to Indian Hills Community College. Originally, it was for business, but she soon figured out that maybe a business degree wasn’t in her cards.

“I started out as a business major, and when I was getting D’s and F’s I thought, well, this is probably not for me,” Hawkins said. “I just started thinking about what I liked, I guess. And I just have always liked kids and liked helping people and helping kids … and the social aspect of it, too. So, that’s what I did and I’ve loved it ever since.”

After some schooling at Indian Hills, she transferred to the University of Northern Iowa to finish up her elementary education degree. After that, life and family took her to North Carolina for a brief period, and then to Nebraska.

After about six years between those

states, she returned to home in 2002, a year before the birth of her daughter, Avery.

Hawkins taught third grade at MoultonUdell for 12 years. During that time, she also coached either high school or junior high volleyball for the school.

Last year, she took a job as a third grade teacher at Lakeview Elementary. When she returned, she also came on as a seventh grade volleyball coach, a season that was just completed.

However, she’s decided to hang up the whistle after this season.

“I’m going to be a mom and watch volleyball next year,” Hawkins said.

She still teaches, though, and has no plans to move away from the third grade level.

“I think I like third, I like the fact that they can write independently most of the time and don’t have the hormones of junior high yet,” Hawkins said through some chuckles.

“I think third grade is where I want to be.”

That grade level means Hawkins basically teaches in all areas — be it math, science, reading, etc.

“Spend two hours a day on reading, and an hour and a half every day on math,” Hawkins said. “Those seem to be our pretty

big focuses at Lakeview. I like it, I like the curriculum that we’re teaching.”

Between around 20 years as a teacher, and doing so in three different states, she has been through many changes in technology and curriculum. This isn’t necessary a struggle for Hawkins, but obviously creates somewhat of a learning curve. “[Education] has changed quite a bit, and socially the kids have changed as well,” Hawkins said.

“It’s a learning curve,” she continued. “When I was in college, I wasn’t even that familiar with computers. We had internet, you know, but I remember taking a class — they told us to just go in and play Submitted photo around, and I was like, “What do you mean? What do you want me Courtney Hawkins, right, with her daughter to look for?” So I obviously, didn’t Avery, left. use a lot of technology at that “There’s so much of it that’s interactive point in time, where now, if my Promethean and there’s just so many great resources Board or my camera is done, I’m like, out there now,” Hawkins said. “That’s what ‘What do I do?’” the kids are used to, that’s what keeps And overall, Hawkins sees the advent them interested.” technology in the classroom as a positive.

Page 12 • Women Today • October 23, 2015